Bullet Train Director Reveals Whether He Asked Keanu Reeves To Do A Cameo: “He Is Always On The List”

Bullet Train director David Leitch has a list of collaborators he can always turn to for cameos in his movies.

Bullet Train, which opens in cinemas last Thursday, stars Brad Pitt as a hitman who’s contracted to retrieve a suitcase on a high-speed Tokyo-to-Kyoto train. Problem is, he isn’t the only assassin vying for the job.

“I have been fortunate to have a long prolific career as a stunt performer and an action director for almost 30 years,” Leitch shared with 8days.sg and other press during the Bullet Train promo tour.

“I have a lot of relationships [to tap into for cameos]," he added. 

Over the years, Leitch has called in a few favours. In 2018’s Deadpool 2, he got his pal Pitt — whom he’d doubled for in several movies, including Fight Club and Troy — to do a blink-and-you’ll-miss cameo as aptly-named Vanisher.

In Hobbs & Shaw, the 2019 Fast & Furious spin-off starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, he managed to get Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart on the call sheet. And if the planets had aligned, he could’ve gotten Keanu Reeves, too.

In a 2019 Hollywood Reporter interview, Leitch revealed that he was this close in landing Reeves a walk-on role.

“We started to populate the movie with all these other personalities, and I just didn’t really think that we needed it, although I would’ve loved it,” Leitch said then, “We even talked in post, and I showed him a rough cut of the movie. We came to the conclusion of ‘let’s put a pin in it.’”

That said, it has us thinking: Did Leitch consider throwing in a Reeves cameo in Bullet Train? (The movie already boasts brief appearances by…. sorry, we aren’t ruining the fun for you, whether you’ve seen it or not.)

“Keanu is always on the list,” said Leitch. “C’mon – I’ll work with him on a donut commercial! I love him and if there’s an opportunity where the audience will enjoy him in a cameo. Yeah, I’m going to call. He’s the best, so for sure.”

Leitch and Reeves go back a long way. Leitch and fellow stuntman-turned-action auteur Chad Stahlelski worked with Reeves on The Matrix trilogy and later directed him in 2014's John Wick.

The John Wick films are co-produced by 87North, an off-shoot of 87Eleven, the action design company, which Leitch co-owns with Stahelski; Reeves will return in John Wick: Chapter 4, slated to come out in March 2023.

Bullet Train (M18) is now in cinemas.

Photos: TPG News/Click Photos